ABU SIMBEL IN GRADE SCHOOL

In 5th -6th grade in our "Weekly Reader," I remember reading articles about the British government and others, having to move these megaliths, Ramses II, Abu Simbel, Egypt, due to the flooding of the Nile River caused by the construction of the Aswan Dam, bordering Egypt and Sudan. I wondered then in 1962-63, why these thousands of year old monuments needed to be disassembled from their places of origin at this time? And, why the Nile needed a dam, given that its famous seasonal floods and ebbs had fed much of the Mediterranean world and Africa, for eons, as noted in the Bible and in legends? I still wonder these questions, to be frank about it!